Rules to Die By
by bemusedkittykat
Summary: Her name is one of only things that is still hers; a name, her companions, and a will to living-something to be held tightly too. Stumbling across one so little and scared, she finds herself detoured from her own mission. Now, to reunite a scared child and a missing mother, and secretly, a debt to collect. Eventual Daryl/OC. Featuring other pairings as well, DEVIATES FROM CANON. AU
1. Chapter 1 :: Getting By

**Disclaimer:: I unfortunately do NOT own the Walking Dead of its characters. I do however own all non-Canon additions to this fic and some of the plot. **_**Loosely follows Canon but will deviate greatly from both the Comic and TV Series Plot.**_

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**Chapter One: Getting By**

_Things weren't always like this. It wasn't always kill or be killed. Though I guess in a way it actually was. It had always been a different kind of death though. _

_Not really literal. _

_No real bloodshed. _

_Political._

_Societal._

_Emotional._

_I mean sure, there was actual death… all of the time to be honest but it all had a different meaning then… ending someone's life. There were so many ways to do it. _

_But now… _

_Now there was only one sure way to end it all. _

_You had to hit the head._

A single stone kept the leather bound book open to this page. A place marker to remind its writer to return and finish the entry before night fell, before it was too late to complete her thoughts. The writer knew that time was one of the most valued things in the world now. Though to many it seemed that there was nothing but time—she knew it was the exact opposite. Time was short. And now, life was even shorter.

She understood all too well how different the world was, each entry she wrote showing that concept more and more. It wasn't odd to imagine the world before; it was more common than imagining the future.

The camp was quiet, much like the world. Not a single sound heard for miles around her except the slow dying crackle of the fire at the center. She had set up a decent temporary base, had picked a spot between a handful of tall trees with low branches, perfect for climbing—perfect for hiding. She looked down at her fire from her post in the north-east tree before looking back out at the surroundings, only a couple hundred feet from her camp she could see her two companions hunting after what appeared to a pair of very plump rabbits, something that wasn't seen all too often in this neck of the woods.

Food would become even scarcer as time progressed and it seemed that wildlife was taking a similar path in some parts of the country. A bit early for the woman's liking but it wasn't exactly as if she had a choice. Some creatures were fattening up, but others, it seemed that they were being eaten quicker than they could breed, much like the human race when one thought of it. The girl watched her dogs closely, releasing a slow sigh. She hadn't seen another human in about a month now. Hell if it weren't for that diary she kept, she would think it had been even longer than that. Time was a relative concept that she was hard set on keeping track of.

She tore her eyes away from her companions as they took down their respective prey. With a slow shaky breath she climbed down from her post and made her way to the camp's center, stroking the fire back to life with a nearby stick. Paying strict attention to her surroundings but hearing no sounds beside that of the crackling wood.

Her companions had learned to make as little sounds as possible, she hadn't heard them join her back at camp, but had instead felt them brush against her in turn. She looked up from her fire and smiled at each of her dogs. "Catch something good then?" she asked them, often speaking to the pair as if they were human. "Better eat up," the young woman said motioning for the dogs to take a place near the fire to eat, they understood the woman quite well and curled their bodies close to the fire's heat, soaking in the warmth as they tore into the fur covered flesh of the rabbits they had spent the last ten or so minutes chasing.

As much as she had grown used to watching flesh be ripped from bone, it was not a site she particularly enjoyed observing. The woman looked over her shoulder in the direction that they had come from; three strings of cans lay at various heights swaying ever-so-slightly in the wind. Not enough to make noise but enough to catch her attention.

"We'll have to pack up when you two finish chowing down. I think it best we got back to the van don't you?"

The canine closest to her looked up, licking the blood from his face he nodded his large head just once, a motion that the woman took for what it meant. The canine was agreeing with her. Some would call her crazy, but she knew her dogs understood her fully. They were well trained before all this in varying areas of expertise.

The male, a pure Belgian Malinois, bred from two police dogs and then trained as such himself. Named after the Norse God and _Marvel_ superhero, Thor had been her brother's dog, a part of the family since it was six weeks old. "You're table manners need work there boy," she said with a shake to her head as the dog's tongue continued to attempt to rid his muzzle of the blood that was dripping from his black fur. His tan coat was only disrupted by the black mask that encompassed his face and ears and the tip of his tail. A great contrast to the coat her other dog sported.

Her own, a Belgian Malinois-Belgian Groenendael mix had a pure black coat with a single white patch of fur on the tip of its left ear. With the disposition of a Malinois and the looks of a Groenendael, the female of the pair had been everything the woman had wanted out of a herding dog; beautiful but efficient. She had trained her dog to not only help around the ranch, but to help her when she went hunting as well. Both dogs were exquisite trackers and oddly enough made an impressive team with one another. Before the world fell, the pair would often track and herd stray cattle back to the ranch before either sibling knew they were missing in the first place.

"Beatrix," she called in a whisper catching the attention of the dog she had raised since it was only a puppy. Beatrix looked up from her rabbit and cocked her head to the side at her owner. "You think you'll finish tearing into that anytime soon?" she teased the dog lightly.

The mix gave a soft bark before digging back into her rabbit. With an amused shake to her head the woman scanned the area once more before picking up her leather journal, tossing the rock aside and began working on finishing her entry.

_I think we're approaching Georgia now. Far shot from home for sure._

Her words weren't on the same path as they had been before. She was no longer in the mood for sentiment and meaningful words.

The majority of her entries had been that way, starting off with meaning and ending with simple record keeping. Where she was and where she was going. Who she had come across, or how long it had been since her last human. And at last, her count; how many dead she had killed.

_It's going on day 45 since my last human interaction. If I am not mistaken that makes today day 74 since Global Outbreak. My concept of time was never the greatest, but I don't think I've skipped an entry yet. I'm glad that I have Thor and Beatrix with me. I fear I would have gone insane by now had it not been for them. _

_Alone was never something I did well, Gareth could tell you that if he were here. _

_I hope I am able to find him soon. I really miss my older brother. _

_Ironic how we were separated right before the fall. _

_I think I'm getting closer to where he should be though. _

_He was in Fort Benning last I heard, that was before communications went down. When there were actual "safe zones", those didn't stay safe for very long though. If I'm right I'm somewhere near Atlanta, but with all the turns off the main road I might be farther from that city than I think. Back roads aren't always labeled after all. But I managed to find what I think might be an interstate, not quite sure though. I plan on figuring it out come morning._

_It won't be long now until I know. I-_

A low growl made the girl look up, her pen still pressed to the pages, leaving a growing blotch of ink. Coming from the North was a group of about six walkers. She had kept her fire low, but sometimes even the low burning embers caught their attention in the increasing darkness of dawn. The woman made a face, closing the book, her pen caught between the pages. "You two going to get them?" she asked her companions already standing up and grabbing her bow. She had preferred her guns to the silent weapon in her hands but having been on the archery team throughout high school, she wasn't a stranger to the wooden instrument.

Thor and Beatrix went back to eating their respective catches knowing that their owner had everything under control, their ears still perked in attention however, cautious of the surrounding area.

The way the woman took care of the undead was quick and efficient. It had been such since the beginning. From the start she had known what to do to keep the undead down for good. It was in one of the last messages from her brother that she had learned that the only way to put the dead down was to destroy the brain. She had never been one for wasting time before the fall and she didn't feel compelled to start.

The way she moved as she drew back each arrow was methodical, and extremely repetitive. Her hands moved efficiently, kept steady as she notched each arrow and took aim. Her breathing remained calm, even as the individual undead creatures moved closer to the boundaries of her camp. It wasn't long before the last groaning undead stopped moving for good, falling to the ground in a heap. "Finish up," she called back to her companions as she placed down her bow and walked forward to retrieve her fallen arrows.

She was seldom one for missing but she had this time, twice; lodging a particularly beautiful arrow into a nearby tree and another had sailed over the group and laid unsoiled next to a bush 25 feet away. The cock feather standing out against the green grass. She looked at the first longingly, in her eyes it was ruined now. There was no way that she was going to be able to dislodge the arrow and keep in intake and usable. Not these arrows. It had been a while since she passed a store with new arrows. Bolts she had seen, but arrows… They were few and far between. None that she was finding, long enough for her bow. So, in result, she resorted to making them herself. Feathers were easier to come by. It only took one bird to give her enough feathers to make a decent amount of ammo.

She often found herself doing things now that in the past she had simply done for fun, or to fill time that was not being used by essential things. Wasting time wasn't an option even when the time was essentially free. She always found constructive ways to fill in the blanks of the day.

With a shake to her head, she retrieved her last arrow from rotting the eye of the twice dead corpse, making a face as the eye came out of the socket with it. Her nose twitched. "Well that's disgusting,"

Thor, finished with his meal moved over to the girl, arrow between his teeth, brushing against her leg to alert her of his silent presence. She looked down at the herder and smiled, taking the arrow from his grip and adding it to her pile on the ground. They'd have to be cleaned the next time she stumbled across any body of water.. "You two ready to head back to the highway?" Thor bowed his head and cradled the arrows between his sharp teeth, careful not to snap the hand carved and sharpened wood. The woman nodded to the dog before following him back into the safety of the overnight camp she had made.

Her original plan had been to stay the night, but having been fed; she wanted to get back on the road as soon as possible. She had left her car at the end of a clogged highway, far enough away from the actual block that if one were to stumble across the obstacle her car would be hit last. She would have heard vehicles approaching from the opposite direction, the direction that would have caused her car to be seen first. She was camped in that direction as it was; she just did not want to navigate the off-roader into the woods. The last time that had happened, she attracted too much attention from the reanimated.

The woman collapsed her camp quietly and quickly; her companions pacing the area to ensure that she was safe as she packed their supplies away. She had more supplies back at the vehicle and even more back home, if people hadn't found her stash that was. A part of her hoped that once she found her brother, the two of them would head home and bunker down at the farm. She doubted it though and sealed the bunker beneath her home. She had so little faith in returning that she had left the pasture gates open, leaving a way for the livestock to escape, the animals had a better chance of survival turning feral then they did staying penned up. All that meat in a concentrated area was a proverbial dinner bell for the undead.

Shouldering her pack she gave a low, high-pitched whistle, her dogs stopping in their track and dropping back on their hunches. Beatrix stood first and approached her trainer. Bending down, the woman secured the pack designed for canines atop of the female herder. Beatrix shifted her weight, testing the distribution and gave the woman a lick, letting her know that it was okay. The woman smiled and kissed her dog on the top of her head, between her two pointed ears, giving an affectionate scratch behind the right one before requesting Thor to approach.

The two dogs changed places and the process was repeated almost exactly the same, with the only difference being, the ear she scratched behind. She stood, quiver tucked safely into her pack, bow slung over her shoulder, and machete in hand. There was no need for her to check the guns strapped to her thighs, not having used them in weeks now.

With a few softly spoken words to her companions she headed back towards the direction in which she came earlier, heading back to her car, and ironically enough the direction that the walking dead had come from earlier. She hoped she didn't run into more, small herds like the one she had just encountered were almost always followed by larger ones. It wasn't clear to the woman as to why, but it seemed obvious enough to her that they had a pack like instinct.

She had her ideas of course. Perhaps it was the sound that made that made them follow one another. She had noticed that the creatures moved based of what they heard or smelt. Sight wasn't the main driving force behind what moved them.

She kept her steps light, making almost no sound as she walked through the woods. Growing up, her father had taught her to hunt and when her brother came back from the war, the young man then taught the woman to be even more silent than what she had learned from their father.

The path back to her pick-up was easy enough to remember. She moved through the forest with almost no thought on her destination. Her flashlight left in her pack so as to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness that seemed to grow denser every passing moment.

With darkness settling over the area quickly, she felt comfortable moving towards the main road. She could see the moonlight reflecting off of the dashed lines that separated the lines of the highway, yet she stayed within the safety of the trees.

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**/AN:: BemusedKittyKat here! Follow me on Twitter bemusedkittykat for chapter update announcements! Hope you all enjoyed this first chapter and decide to stick around to see what else this fic has in store!**

**Don't be shy to leave any comments, all types of reviews are welcome, I am always open to seeing if people like, love, or hate what I'm writing.**

**Until next time-**


	2. Chapter 2 :: I Won't Hurt You

******Disclaimer:: I unfortunately do NOT own the Walking Dead of its characters. I do however own all non-Canon additions to this fic and some of the plot. **_**Loosely follows Canon but will deviate greatly from both the Comic and TV Series Plot.**_

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**Chapter Two: I Won't Hurt You**

The sound of a child sobbing broke the woman out of her daze as she walked onward, almost at her vehicle. Two additional pairs of ears perked at the noise that broke the eerie silence that accompanied the end of the world.

Thor, having been trained as not only a military companion, guard dog and herder, but as a search-and-rescue canine in addition; he knew the sound of a lost and afraid child all too well. His current master looked at him and with his head to the side the former military dog raised a silent question. He knew, that she knew, that it was dangerous to follow human noises, but the child's sobs sounded fearful. Thor listened to his human let out a sigh, torn between discovering the source and continuing onward. His mate had stopped at this point as well, staring at their Master with the same questioning look on his own face.

"Track," was the single word that fell from the two legged's lips.

Thor tilted his head up and took a deep breath, catching the scent of fear and salt—tears, he knew them to be called, having heard the word fall from Gareth's (his true master's) lips before; he just equated the scent with the human's ability to leak bodily fluids from the face. He turned his head in the direction he was scenting the child, allowing his current human to know in which direction he would be heading.

His true Master's sister gave a nod, telling him it was okay to follow the scent and find the girl. Thor kept a slower pace, knowing that the human could easily loose him in these woods, but there was a clear urgency in his steps. As the sobs grew louder, the urgency behind the dog's steps became apparent as the girl's fear grew.

The woman came to a stop just a few feet from Thor, who too had stopped. Tangled in the branches of a tree, was a little girl, clutching her arms around herself, shaking, and her back braced against the large sturdy truck. Below her a small pack of undead; three sets of rotting arms reaching for the girl and narrowly missing. Animals were unaffected by the virus as far as the woman knew, but she wasn't about to risk it and dropped her pack and bow, telling both Thor and Beatrix to stand their ground with a silent hand signal. With her machete in hand she moved slowly towards the crowd of geeks.

There were many things that the woman referred to the undead as. She seemed to come up with a new name for them with each one she killed. "Zombie" had never been one of them. To the woman the word zombie held a different connotation, having studied the various religions and cultures in the world before returning home and taking over the family farm after had her parents' deaths. She and her brother had gone away to after high school; her attending Cornell University and her older brother, enlisting in the United States Army.

It wasn't hard to convince Gareth's superiors to allow him to bring in Thor, the dog already having received Police K-9 training since puppy years. Thor trained along his human and was even deployed for a tour across the ocean. Thor had taken a bullet to his flank half way through Gareth's first tour, ending the canine's own military career earlier than expected. His training after rehabilitation had come in handy on the farm, and in the small town the twins grew up in.

A twig snapped beneath the woman's foot, catching the attention of one of the undead. The human raised her machete ready to slice through the skull of the meandering rotting corpse. It picked up speed towards her as it realized that she was within reach—more so than the skinny girl up the tree.

Behind the woman, Thor and Beatrix rose to their feet, their bodies showing how alert they were to the surrounding area, ready at a moment's notice join the fight. Notoriously where there were a group of zombies, more were to follow. If the three had learned anything since the fall, undead tended to move in packs, following each other mindlessly.

The woman swung the machete with ease, slicing the undead's head clean in half, the top end of the skull and brain flying across the wooded area and into the truck of a particularly large tree. The threes seemed thicker here in Georgia than what the New Yorker was used to. Large sturdy trucks beneath layers and layers of branches, as I given hundreds of years to grow undisturbed.

She held back a cringe at the sight that the exploding brain matter had created. "Gross," she heard from in the tree.

The woman looked up and smiled at the little girl, glad that she was no longer shaking. There was less of a chance that she could fall from the tree in that case. "Are you bit?" she asked the little girl, drawing the attention of the undead to her, instead of the little girl. She waited for the girl to respond before returning her attention to the dead.

They came at her at the same time, one at a fraction of a second's pace slower than the other. It was almost undetectable but the ever observant woman saw the difference, quickly dispatching the closer one. She used that second's time between the two geeks to her advantage. Yanking out her machete just in time to implant it into the skull of the gasping undead. It's arms that had been reaching towards her falling limply to its sides as the body hung suspended merely by the connection of the bladed weapon. Bringing her foot up to the dead's chest she pushed at the same time as she pulled, dislodging the weapon from the head of the creature. It made almost no sound as it crumpled to the ground in a rotting heap.

The woman moved slowly towards the little girl, still strung up in the tree, her companions hanging back a few feet, pacing the general area, ensuring their master's safety.

"Do you need help getting down sweetie?" the woman asked, her eyes scanning the exposed skin of the girl. She was covered almost head to toe in coagulated blood, her hair matted and falling from her pony tail. The woman noted the torn fabric of bother her shirt and pants but noticed no signs of human blood. No the blood of the undead was dark, darker than red, almost black really and the way that the moonlight reflected off of undead blood was different than the way it glinted off of living blood.

The little girl shook her head. "Who are you?" she stuttered out.

The woman sighed as she watched the girl carefully. She needed the child out of the tree so she could properly look her over. "Devereux," she said automatically stating her last name. Her lack of trust had been built during the early days of Global Outbreak. It wasn't as she didn't trust the little girl, to be honest, children were probably all you could trust in this world. She just wanted to hold onto her name for as long as she could.

"Ms. Debero," the girl repeated, pronouncing the woman's last name wrong.

The woman couldn't help but smile as she shook her head. "You can call me Dev, sweetheart. Or whatever you'd like to call me really," she said softly moving closer to the tree with every word she said. Her machete was re-sheathed against her back.

"Are you an angel?" the little girl asked leaning a bit from her branch.

"No."

The girl shook her head, almost as if not believing the woman. "I think you are. Momma always told me that if I was ever scared and I prayed hard enough, God would send me down an angel to keep me company… to keep me safe."

The woman couldn't help but sigh at this. Religion had never been a strong point for her. She had studied several over the years, but none had ever stuck to her. No theory or faith ever fit how she viewed the world. He brother had teased her, said that she could build her own church with her elaborate beliefs. "I'm not an angel sweetie."

"I think you are," she whispered.

The woman nodded. "Then perhaps I am one without even knowing it. Could that be possible sweetie?"

The little girl seemed to think the woman's words over for a minute. "I think so," she said softly. "Maybe God, made you forget you were one of his so that you'd do your good deeds on your own. Momma called that free will. Said that no matter what I always had a choice even if she didn't. She said that when Papa would drink too much. Momma would stay home and send me to Aunt Vicki's house. I never much liked when Momma tried to hide it from me, but I knew…" the little girl trailed off. It was almost as if she were babbling to herself.

The woman listened closely. If she was gathering correctly, the girl's father had been abusive. She had seen it before, what abuse did to children. It didn't even have to be that they were the ones being hit, just seeing one parent getting thrown around was enough to scare a child for the rest of their life. Devereux let out a long sigh, almost in sadness. "Will you come down sweetie?" There was a pause. "What is your name, little one?"

"Are they dead?" the little girl said looking down at the undead at her feet.

The woman looked over at the fallen corpses and nodded before she spoke. "They are sweetie… Please come out of that tree. I have clothes back at my truck that you can change into. It must be really gross sitting in those stinky clothes with all that dirt and blood all over it."

The little blond looked like she was thinking over her options. "Do you have water? I'm awfully thirsty," she said as she moved slowly, deliberately buying herself time. Thor looked over to her master from where he sat in the distance. He could sense the distrust in the little girl, almost as if she didn't know if she could trust his now Master.

He let out a low sound, one unheard by both humans signaling to Beatrix that she should move in towards their Master. Perhaps the presence of the dog would coax the girl from the tree. If the police dog knew anything about children it was that they trusted pets much more than they trusted other humans when they were scared.

Beatrix moved with deliberate steps, taking care to make noise as not to startle the little girl in the tree. The girl looked to sounds made by the dog, unsure what to make of the pure black canine at first.

"Is she yours?" the girl asked. She was still yet to give the ex-farmer her name.

The dark haired woman nodded. "She is," she said slowly, bending briefly to scratch Beatrix behind her ear. "Would you like to come down and pet her?"

The girl nodded and with careful steps climbed down though the branches of the tree to join the woman and her companions on the ground. There was a subtle signal given to Beatrix by the woman and the dog bounded over to the girl enthusiastically, dropping back on her flanks and cocking her head to the side.

Beatrix sat still as the blood covered child reached out and ran her fingers through her long think fur. "Hey girl," the girl whispered, drawing comfort from the canine. After a few moments she looked up at the woman she decided she would now call 'Angel'.

"My name is Sophia."

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**/AN:: Hello there readers! I hope you are enjoying this fic. **

**I have decided to add this story into Tuesday of my update rotation. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter ( bemusedkittykat) to receive more direct update announcements and such in relation to this fic and my others (that will eventually be posted here).**

**Happy reading!**


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